Battle of the Soul
by Hi no Hime
Summary: A tragedy strikes the figure skating community. Yurio doesn't have a clue. Yuuri has a secret. Also on A03.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Yuri on Ice or any of it's characters.

They were all in the break room when they got the news. Chris, Pichit, and Otabek were all visiting, though still practicing. Yuuri, Viktor, and Yurio had just finished their morning session. They had the tables set up so they could all see each other and talk. They were all talking about whatever came to mind; how Yuuri's family, Yurio's grandpa, skate programs, Yuuri and Viktor's wedding when Yakov came in solemnly.

He went over and turned the TV onto the news. There they learned that one of the top skaters from Spain had committed suicide. Everyone was silent as Yakov spoke;

"Everyone I am canceling this afternoon's practice. Go home." Then without another word he left the skaters to their thoughts.

After a few more minutes of silence while everyone wrapped their minds around what had happened Christoph spoke, "Wow I wouldn't have expected something like this." He said quietly, looking away from the others.

"Yea, I actually met him a few years ago. His skating was very good. A few more years and he could have rivaled all of us." Viktor added. Yuuri and Pichit shared a look, but neither added anything.

"Yea well I say whatever!" Yurio said leaning back in his chair, putting the feet on the table. "So what if he couldn't handle the pressor. That just means he was weak." Flipping his hair back and staring at the others. For a moment, the older skaters were shocked into silence. Then Pichit slammed his hands on the table.

"You don't know that. You have no idea what he was going through. Suicide does not equal weakness." Pichit stood up his voice getting louder as he spoke. Yurio, not one to back down when directly challenged flew forward.

"Yea well I know that he took the coward's way out. Whatever was going on there had to be a better solution than offing himself!" The others stayed silent through the exchange, unsure of what to say. Pichit shot a glance over at Yuuri, seeing his distress.

"YOU DON'T KNOW THAT! You have no idea what was going through his hea…" Pichit started before Yurio interrupted him.

"What so it's perfectly okay for a person to end it all just because things get difficult?" Yurio shouted at the Thai boy.

"That is not what I'm saying! I'm saying…" Before Pichit could finish that thought he was once again interrupted, this time by Yuuri.

"ENOUGH! Both of you quit yelling." Yuuri said standing up and looking at the pair. The two stopped their augment and looked at the Japanese man. Yurio looking at him with anger and disgust, while Pichit just hung his head, ashamed of his behavior.

"Y Yuuri man I'm sorry. He just… and what he was saying. I just lost it." Pichit stammered out quickly. Yuuri put his hand of the Pichit's should causing him to look up.

"It's okay. I get it." Yuuri gave him a reassuring smile. Meanwhile the other four watching the exchange with growing curiosity.

"Why the hell are you apologizing to the pig?" Yurio sneered. Pichit just looked at Yuuri wide eyed, unsure of what to say.

Yuuri shook his head and softly said, "It's okay Chit." Then turned to face the young Russian. "Yurio, Pichit is right. You really have no idea. You don't know what he was going through, what he was dealing with. You don't know how that feels." Wrapping his arms around himself, Yuuri took a deep breath before continuing.

"You have no idea what it feels like. To look around you and feel nothing. You don't know what it's like to feel like you will never be happy again. Even if there's not some big crisis going on. When you know objectively that you _should_ be happy. You can't possibly understand what it's like to look at your friends and family and be absolutely, 100% certain that they would all be better off if you weren't there. And all you want is to stop it all. Stop the pain, the emptiness eating you alive. And you just continue to spiral down until all you can think about is how it make it all just go away. Then you start to think that you'd be doing everyone a favor by taking yourself out. And you are convinced that no one will even be sad. In fact everyone will be happy to have someone so stupid, fat, ugly, and useless out of the way. That or no one will even notice enough to care." Yuuri sat down after his speech, utterly drained.

"And I suppose you do." Yurio said quieter with less malice than usual. Yuuri looks Yurio dead in the eye.

"Yes."

With that one word the room exploded. Yurio and Christoph looked at Yuuri in horror. Otabek just looked down at the floor, keeping silent.

Viktor grabbed Yuuri into a tight hug and cried. "Yuuri NO! You have to know that's not true. There are tons of people who would be devastated if we lost you! There are so many people who love you! _I love you_!" Yuuri gave the flamboyant man a soft smile and wrapped his arms around him.

"Yes Viktor. _Now_ I know that. _Now_ I have you. But there was a time when things weren't like that. When I felt so alone."

"Umm not trying to step on toes or anything but did you ever… you know… try?" Christoph asked uncomfortably.

"What? Try to kill myself?" Christoph nodded and looked away. "Yea I did. Once." Yuuri looked up at Pichit and gave him a small smile. "Thankfully Pichit found me in time and there wasn't any… lasting damage." Viktor lifted his head off Yuuri's shoulder and looked at the other boy, as did all the others.

"Hey I just did what anyone would do." Pichit said raising his hands. "Truth is I was really freaking out."

"Either way, I never did thank you." Yuuri scratched his head embarrassed. Suddenly there was a crash as Yurio stormed out of the room.

"Yura." Otabek called softly before following the boy. Viktor looked like he was going to go after but Yuuri stopped him.

"It's a lot to take in, let Otabek be with him." Yuuri said snuggling into Viktor's embrace. "Okay I'll leave the kitten to him. Besides I think right now I'd rather show you just how much I love you." Viktor then leaned into give his beloved a kiss.

"Well that's enough heavy stuff for now. Com'on Pichit let's go and give these two some privacy." Christoph said standing up and putting his arm around the Thai boy's shoulder.

Right, go get something to eat. I'm starving." The two continued talking as they left their colleagues behind. "See you guys later."

Viktor rested his forehead against Yuuri's. "Yuuri, I love you so much. Whatever happens, know that I am here for you. I will always be here for you." Viktor lifted Yuuri's right hand to kiss the gold ring adorning his finger. "For better or worse. My heart is yours. If you ever start to feel like that again please, _please_ come talk to me." Blue eyes gazed into light brown, imploring the owner to understand.

"Of course, Viktor. I can't guarantee that it'll be easy, but I'll do my best. I will still get depressed and anxious, but if you can be patient with me I think we can get through this." Eyes shining Viktor gave Yuuri a wide smile.

"Alright then, I will certainly do my best. Now come my love, let's go home and I am going to spoil you rotten." Yuuri laughed and kissed his fiancé.

"Alright, yeah, let's go home." Yuuri smiled as he and Viktor walked out hand in hand.

The fight with depression and anxiety are lifelong battles, but with friends and family by your side it doesn't have to be something you face alone.

A/N: Second chapter to come soon


	2. Chapter 2

With Yurio and Otabek

"Yura! Wait up!" Otabek called after his young friend. He followed the boy into an empty hallway, away from where anyone else would be. Yuri suddenly stopped and turned to face the older boy, unshed tears in his eyes.

"Beka." Is all he said before launching himself into Otabek's waiting arms. Otabek wrapped the smaller boy into his embrace, resting his cheek on the boy's hair.

"Shh Yura it's okay." At those words Yuri pulled back slightly to look at Otabek.

"No it's not. I mean seriously; what the hell." Yuri could feel anger growing in his chest. "He.. he just springs that on me. Like it's nothing! Like I didn't just find out that someone I care about not only wanted to kill himself, but actually _tried_." Yuri threw his hands in the air and started pacing. "Seriously what the hell.

A/N: I know this is short, but I needed it to set up the final chapter and felt chapter 1 had a good ending.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Yuri on Ice or any of it's characters

A/N: Sorry this took so long. I had such a hard time with this chapter, I hope you all like it.

A few days later Yurio and Otabek found themselves standing outside the door to Viktor and Yuuri's apartment. Hesitating a moment Yurio raised his hand to knock, casting a quick glance to the older skater before gently rapping his knuckles on the door. At first it seemed as if no one had heard but soon they heard shuffling on the other side of the door, along with the sounds of a very excited Makkachin. A moment later the door opened and Viktor appeared with a smile.

"Hey you two. Come in, Yuuri's just making some tea." Viktor moved out of the way, letting the younger men inside his and Yuuri's home. They took off their coats and shoes then made their way to the living room and sat down together on the sofa. They could hear ceramic cups clinking around in the kitchen and the whistling of the tea kettle. "I'm going to go see if he needs any help, you two make yourselves comfortable." With that the silver haired skater left Yurio and Otabek to themselves.

Yurio looked at Otabek, nervousness written all over his face. Otabek cupped the younger boy's face in his hand and looked him directly in his green eyes.

"Yura it's okay. I know this is an uncomfortable topic, but these are our friends. Everything will be fine." Otabek tried his best to assuage Yurio's fears while gently running his thumb across the boy's cheek. Yurio leaned into the comforting touch.

"I'm just… I guess I'm afraid. Of what he's going to say or how he's going to react. I don't know…" Yurio looked away, but Otabek's hand prevented him from moving away. Otabek leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss to the distressed boy's temple.

"You don't have to be afraid. No matter what happens, I will be here for you my soldier. I will always be here." He kissed the boy again softly, wiped away a few tears threatening to fall, and leaned back. The boy took a second and straightened himself out. Rubbing his eyes, he looked at his friend.

"Thank you Beka." Yurio gave Otabek the smile reserved just for his. Seconds later Viktor reappeared followed by Yuuri. Yuuri gave the boys somber smile, knowing the reason for their visit.

"Hey Yurio, Otabek sorry that took so long. _Someone_ "he shot a pointed look at his fiancé,"forgot to put the tea back where it belongs, so there was a bit of a search." Yuuri set the tray with the tea and some snacks on the coffee table.

"It's no problem at all Yuuri. We weren't waiting that long." Otabek said politely accepting an offered cup of tea.

"Yeah, can't be helped since you decided to marry an idiot." Yurio said gruffly, with no trace of his earlier distress evident.

"Hey!" Viktor shouted his indignation and Yuuri snickered at the comment.

"Anyway, why don't we get down to the reason for your visit. Not that we don't like having you, but there was something specific you wanted to talk about." Yuuri said before sipping his tea and looking at the young blonde.

"Ah, yeah. Right, that. Umm…" Yurio looked at Otabek, unable to articulate what he wanted to say. Otabek rubbed Yurio's shoulder before speaking.

"Yuri wanted to talk about what you told us the other day, about your suicide attempt. He was concerned that he might have said something to upset you or that his words to you after the previous Grand Prix might have played some part in your decision to try to kill yourself." He took a calm breath and looked carefully between the two Yuri's. The younger looking away, a small blush dusted his cheeks. However, the elder had a look akin to horror, shock very evident on his face. After the initial shock, he spoke.

"Yurio, oh no. I didn't… you didn't… I I" he took a deep breath to calm down before speaking again, Viktor rubbing his lower back gently. "No, what you said had nothing to do with my suicide attempt. In fact, it's impossible because I did it two years before I even met you." Yuri looked up at him then. "I mean sure what you said definitely didn't help my mental state at the time but it had nothing to do with that." Yuri let out the breath he'd been holding.

"Okay." Yuri's voice was small and softer than either of the older two had ever heard come from the boy. Otabek just reached up and brushed Yuri's hair out of his face and whispered to him. "See Yura, I told you it would be okay."

"Yurio, do you want me to tell you what happened?" Yuuri asked softly. The boy's eyes shot open wide in shock.

"You don't have to do that! I mean that's bad right? Making you talk about it; wouldn't that just make you feel like that again or something?" Yurio could feel a panic rising in this chest. He didn't want to be the cause of something bad happening to his namesake. Yuuri got up from where he was sitting and knelt in front of the blonde. He took Yurio's hands in his and looked right into the green eyes.

"It's okay Yurio. Some people actually find it therapeutic to talk about it, especially with people they care about." Yurio was once again shocked and he kept his eyes locked with Yuuri's chocolate gaze.

"You care about me?" Yurio asked, his expressions soft Viktor could barely believe it was the same hostile teen he'd known for years.

Yuuri gave the younger a warm look. "Of course I care about you. You're my friend… no you're my family Yurio." Yurio was bright red, but still maintaining eye contact with the Japanese man.

"Okay. If you don't mind, I want to hear it. I want to know what happened." Yuuri gave Yurio's hands a squeeze before he got up and went to sit back down by Viktor.

"Okay, so like I said, it was a little over three years ago. There was this guy who hung around the rink. He didn't skate or anything, he just liked to watch and harass the skater. Celestino tried to get him banned, but since it was a public place and he wasn't actually _doing_ anything to anyone, there wasn't much that could be done.

Then one day I came out after my individual practice and saw him messing with Phichit. It was less then a month after Phichit came to Detroit, his English wasn't very good at the time either. As his senior and roommate I felt the need to take care of him, so I went over to stop him. There was a bit of back and forth and in the end the guy punched me. Celestino happened to walk out right then and saw what happened. After that the guy finally got banned from the rink, and was even suspended from school. I guess after that he had it out for me.

Shortly after that I started receiving threats. At first I didn't pay any attention to them, but as time went on they kept coming, and they got worse. At some point he got ahold of my phone number and then the calls started. Nothing was every said, but he would call from a different number every time. They would come in anytime of day or night. Rumors were started about me sleeping around and all sorts of other things. Eventually I started getting calls from people asking for sex. People started contacting me on social media, sending me harassing and inappropriate pictures. I was still receiving threats.

One day I came home after practice to find me door had been forced open and my room trashed. All sorts of disgusting things had been spread around. They had to move Phichit and I to a new room because ours was so destroyed." Yuuri took a moment to catch his breath and calm down. A lot of old feelings were resurfacing and he didn't want to panic and scare Yurio. The other three sat in silence absorbing everything they had just been told.

Victor touched Yuuri's shoulder before wrapping his arms around his waist, pulling his beloved against his chest. He rested his forehead on Yuuri's shoulder, then planted a small kiss on his neck as a general encouragement. Yuuri took one more deep breath before continuing.

"After we switched rooms things just kept getting worse and worse. I shut off all my social media accounts, stopped going to classes. I didn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I was jumpy all the time. I was so afraid that any minute something else would happen. Then one night, on my way home from practice, I was attacked. There were four of them. They knocked me out, so I don't know exactly what happened but…"

Yuuri had to take a few minutes to calm down. He didn't dare look at the others. Throughout his story he could feel Viktor's arms tightening around him. Part of him wanted to stop, but he knew he needed to keep going, he had to get through this. He just needed to keep reminding himself that he was safe, that he was with friends.

"So they knocked me out and a few hours later I came to. My clothes were torn and my bag with my skates was gone, along with my phone. I was bruised and sore from where they had hit and kicked me. I slowly made my way back to my dorm. When I got there it was three in the morning and I had a 7am class. I took a quick shower, cleaned my injuries and fell asleep. The next morning when I got up for me class, there were a bunch of papers shoved under the door. They were pictures. Of me. They were all from different times and places too. Some of them were of me sitting in class, or the library studying. Some of them were me leaving the rink. There were even some that had to have been taken by someone inside the locker room. I went out into the hallway to see if the person who put them there was still around, but what I saw was even worse.

The hallway was covered in these pictures, and even more. There were pictures of me completely naked even. After I saw that I ran back into my room to hide. Phichit woke up then and saw the pictures I had left laying on the table. He ran out down the hall trying to pull down as many as possible, but there were too many. He called Celestino and he came to take a look. Turns out they weren't just down our hallway, but all over campus. The campus police were called and they proceeded to clean up all the pictures they could find, but without knowing exactly who posted them there wasn't much that could be done. They did start an investigation on the assault the night before though. It was afternoon before they were all taken down too, so pretty much everyone had seen them.

After that I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't leave the room for over a week because I was just so afraid. Phichit stayed with me as much as possible, but he couldn't miss class and practice. Almost two weeks after the incident with the pictures I couldn't stand it anymore. So after Phichit left for class I did it. I grabbed a pocket knife and went into the bathroom.

I just stared at myself in the mirror, I don't know how long. After working up my nerve I made the first cut. It hurt so much, but it was a distraction from the storm in my head. After the first cut I kept making more. My left arms was covered in cuts and blood. After a bit I made a long cut up my arms, along the vein. After that I sat down and just watched the blood as it poured out of me. Eventually I passed out from the blood loss.

From what I've been told, Phichit must have found me soon after. He called 911 and they got there just in time. I had lost so much blood, if they had gotten to me any later I would have died. The first thing I remember thinking when I woke up was how pathetic I was. I was such a screwup that I couldn't even die right. I couldn't stop those guys from assaulting me, I couldn't stop them from humiliating me, and I couldn't even die. I was so mad.

They had me strapped to the bed, so I couldn't even move very well either. My arm was completely wrapped in bandages. They must have been watching out for me to wake up, because not even five minutes later my room was full of doctors, nurses, social workers, etc. Celestino was there too. They were all talking at me and I couldn't understand a thing they were saying. At some point I must have started screaming, because then all of them were quiet.

In the end they admitted me to the suicide ward, where I stayed for three weeks. I didn't want to talk about it, I didn't want anything except for them to leave me alone. Phichit and Celestino came to visit me everyday, but I refused to talk to them. I was angry at Phichit for finding me and angry at Coach for leaving me in there. During the second week they came and told me that my phone and bag had been found. They found evidence pointing to that guy and his friends, so they were being held for questioning. During the search of their rooms they also found copies of the pictures and even more that hadn't been put up. After that I started talking more and working with my doctors. I was eventually released with the condition that I had to attend weekly therapy, as well a bi-weekly group therapy. I forgave Phichit, able to admit that he had done the right thing, and for about the next six months Phichit didn't give me even a moment alone. I went along with it because by then I understood why he was doing it.

I went back to the ice and had one of my best seasons and even made it to the GPF, and well you know the rest from there…" They all sat in complete silence for a long while. The only sound was Viktor sniffling , trying, and failing, to hold back his tears. He had no idea that his beloved Yuuri had gone through so much.

Yurio had no idea what to say either. Part of him wanted to bawl his eyes out like Viktor, but his pride wouldn't let him. Otabek had grabbed hold of his hand at some point and gave him a soft squeeze. He looked up at the older boy who was watching him intently. Without saying a word Yurio stood up and walked over to where Yuuri was sitting on Viktor's lap. He was unsure as to what he wanted to say or do, but eventually he did speak up.

"I'm sorry you went through that. You, you didn't deserve it. You didn't deserve any of that." Yuuri stood up and pulled Yurio into a tight hug.

"Thank you Yurio. And thank you for letting me share that with you." Yurio pulled back a bit, a questioning look on his face.

"Why are you thanking me?"

"Because, I think I needed that. It's been a long time since I've let myself think about it, but going through it all again, in a place and with people I feel safe with, it helped me move past it in a way I couldn't before. It's kind of difficult to explain, but the closest I can think of is that I feel lighter. Like this giant weight I didn't even know I carried has been taken away. So thank you." Yurio didn't give any answer. He just pulled the older skater back into a deep hug and held on.


End file.
